Who Needs to Play Defense?

Anthony Puts On a Show, Racking Up 42 Against the Hawks, but the Knicks Barely Eke Out a Win

By

Chris Herring

Updated Jan. 27, 2013 11:20 p.m. ET

From
Mike Woodson
's
vantage point, it was both a thing of beauty and an eyesore.

Knicks star
Carmelo Anthony,
arguably the best scorer in the world, was in the midst of putting on perhaps the best shooting display he ever has. But on the flip side, the Knicks played the worst defense they've shown all season.

Somehow, the latter didn't end up costing the Knicks, as they won an absolutely bizarre 106-104 game over the Atlanta Hawks (25-19) at Madison Square Garden to open a five-game homestand Sunday.

Anthony, who scored a game-high 42 points, made what turned out to be the game-winning layup with 12 seconds left, and Atlanta's
Josh Smith
missed a wide-open triple on the other end just before the final horn.

It was fitting that the Hawks' last shot came with no Knicks around—largely because it seemed like the majority of their other attempts did, too. They hit a whopping 60% (39 for 65) of their tries, by far the highest percentage the Knicks (27-15) have allowed this season. The Knicks allowed point guard Jeff Teague (27 points, six assists) into the lane repeatedly, and 50 of Atlanta's points came in the paint.

Luckily for the Knicks, Atlanta was hardly any more resistant; particularly around the perimeter, where the Knicks did considerable damage. Anthony alone hit nine threes, tying a Knicks' franchise record, through the first three quarters. The team finished 59.3% (16 for 27) from behind the arc on the day, and 54.2% overall.

Despite all their offensive fireworks, the Knicks looked likely to drop the game, particularly after Anthony got frustrated after being poked in the eye by DeShawn Stevenson in the fourth quarter with the game tied at 101. The forward got the foul call—but, clearly irritated, he slammed the ball to the court, prompting an official to call a technical foul. In the process, Atlanta went ahead by a point, 102-101, with just under two minutes remaining.

The Hawks held that margin and had the ball with 22 seconds left, but the Knicks benefited from a questionable offensive-foul call on Atlanta's Smith that gave them the ball for Anthony's game-winning shot, wrapping up his fourth 40-point game of the season and his 29th straight game over 20 points, tying a franchise record.

For the Knicks, Anthony's videogame-like shooting display was a welcome sign. He'd come into the game mired in nine-game slump in which he'd shot just 38.6%. His first quarter wasn't pretty—he hit just one of five in that period—but he heated up quickly in the second. At one point, he hit three consecutive threes on three possessions, all from 25 feet out or farther, in the second quarter.

"He needed a breakout like that," Woodson said of Anthony, who finished nine of 12 from long range. "He'd been scoring, but he hadn't been shooting that well."

The Knicks needed just about every one of the points Anthony poured in—both to win the game and to stop the narrative from turning toward another porous defensive performance.

The win over the Hawks came one night after the Knicks were embarrassed. In Philadelphia, the 76ers handed the Knicks one of their ugliest losses of the season. Much like the slicing and dicing Teague did Sunday, the Sixers' Jrue Holiday shredded the Knicks' perimeter defense Saturday, notching a career-high 35 points in that game. Immediately following the loss, Woodson took the rare step of publicly criticizing his troops, saying they didn't show any effort and "didn't come to compete."

Because of how ugly the Saturday game was, Woodson didn't even have his players watch the film of the debacle. "It was just too miserable to watch," he said.

If they choose to break down Sunday's film, they might find their defense was just as poor as it was on Saturday. But at least they'll have a happier ending to look forward to.

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